Adding a M.2 drive - some advice please.

colmac2000 · 4 Jun 2020 at 13:34

I want to add a 500GB M.2 drive to a system which currently has a 1TB standard hard drive and use it as a boot drive and for running Steam games. I still need to keep the 1TB drive in there as it has more than 500GB on it...so any tips on how to go about this and set it up correctly? I have used Macrium Reflect to clone and replace whole drives before but not piecemeal in this way...

bagel · 4 Jun 2020 at 15:26

I'd just fresh install windows onto the SSD, less likely to run into issues

Maundie · 4 Jun 2020 at 19:07

bagel said:
I'd just fresh install windows onto the SSD, less likely to run into issues

2nd'd, it takes about 10-15mins to install Windows 10 onto a SSD but remember to unplug the SATA cable to the Hdd 1st though otherwise you my accidentally overwrite it.

nashathedog · 4 Jun 2020 at 19:19

Make sure to buy an NVME M.2 drive and not a sata M.2.

Mcnumpty2323 · 4 Jun 2020 at 19:37

how much more than 500gb is on the 1tb?
if its not massively over the 500gb stuff like deleting hyberfil.sys
running disk cleanup
deleting software distribution folder
etc may get you under 500gb to be able to clone
yeah its fast to just install windows
its all the other stuff that takes the time
updates,software etc

colmac2000 · 4 Jun 2020 at 20:31

Mcnumpty2323 said:
how much more than 500gb is on the 1tb?
if its not massively over the 500gb stuff like deleting hyberfil.sys
running disk cleanup
deleting software distribution folder
etc may get you under 500gb to be able to clone
yeah its fast to just install windows
its all the other stuff that takes the time
updates,software etc

Yeah, I must admit - I am thinking along these lines...I think it is not much over.

If I want to do a clean install [stupid question alert] - how do I do that? Create a recovery USB from the existing install? Then can I just leave the existing HDD in there for storage, or do I need to somehow re-classify it as a storage only drive.

bagel · 4 Jun 2020 at 21:01

you can create a windows 10 installation usb from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

I'd imagine you can just leave it in there and just set the SSD as the boot drive in BIOS

Mcnumpty2323 · 5 Jun 2020 at 14:32

As said use the USB creator tool
And ideally if doing a clean install only
Have the 1 drive attached that you
Are installing windows on
Otherwise both drives get added to the boot record
That can cause issues if you ever decide to format or remove /replace the original
Drive as it would still be looking for it
When the pc boots up